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The morning rush was just coming to an end when Illuga received the call.
With the shop’s proximity to the university and finals just around the corner, it had been busier than usual. Which was fine! It made the time go by faster, and the regulars were all awesome, but for some reason, Illuga was struggling. He’d screwed up more than a few orders so far, and spilled an entire drink on the counter and all over himself.
He was wiping down the mess he had made at the bar when he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket, startling him so badly that Jahoda noticed him jump from clear across the dining room where she was cleaning up a different mess. She tilted her head in question, braids bobbing with the movement, as Illuga fished the phone out of his pocket. His brow furrowed as he read the caller ID, and he gestured to the back room to let Jahoda know he was going to take it. The number was local, and no one except for Flins really called him nowadays, so he figured it was probably something he shouldn’t ignore.
Once out of sight of customers, he finally answered.
“Hello?”
“Good morning,” a pleasant voice came through the speaker. “This is Katya from Nasha Town Medical Center–” Illuga’s blood ran cold. He was receiving a call from where? “Looking for a… Mr. Illuga.”
Illuga tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry, and his tongue felt like it weighed a ton. A million thoughts raced through his mind, but they all ultimately led to the same question: Is Pops okay? Why else would the hospital be calling him?
“This is he…” Illuga hoped he didn’t sound as distressed as he felt.
"I'm calling regarding your husband, Lohen–” Iluga’s knees almost buckled with the relief that flooded him, knowing that this wasn’t about his pops. Still, the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach lingered.
Hang on. His what?
No. It was probably a mistake, and he shouldn't dwell on it. There was something far more important to be worrying about right now.
Like, what the hell had Lohen gotten himself into this time? And why was Illuga listed as his emergency contact…? Given Lohen’s circumstances, it wasn’t odd that he had Illuga listed, but he never said anything about it! Illuga would be lying if he said the thought didn’t make his heart clench, which only made him feel awful for acting like a lovesick fool while something was wrong with Lohen.
“Is he okay?” Illuga couldn’t help but ask, “Do I need to come up there?”
“He’s been unconscious since he arrived, so any information you can provide will be most helpful. If now’s a good time, I could get that information from you while I’ve got you on the line.”
Unconscious? Lohen? Was it really something that serious?
Well, obviously it was, considering the damn hospital was calling him, but still… it was hard to imagine Lohen of all people in such a state. It felt wrong, like when his sleeves bunch up underneath his coat or when he can feel the tie to his apron is off-center.
Ever since they were kids, Lohen had been the more rambunctious one of the two, always sporting some cut or scrape or bruise from playing outside. He never quite grew out of it, always playing sports or doing something just as dangerous as it was thrilling throughout high school and now even into university.
It had never been anything this bad, though—never something that had him knocked out for Goddess knows how long at this point. It seemed there would never be a day when Illuga could stop fretting because of his dear friend.
“Yeah, of course.” Illuga agreed as if he wasn’t currently on the clock.
As soon as he answered all the questions and hung up the phone, he pocketed it and undid the tie to his apron in record time. He threw it haphazardly over his shoulder and headed for the door like his ass had suddenly caught on fire.
“Lohen’s in the hospital,” he told Jahoda on his way out, only stopping briefly to make sure she heard him. “Tell Tarno and Rollon when they get here, please? Thank you!” And then he was off.
He had to go be with Lohen.
Thankfully, the hospital wasn’t too far from the coffee shop. One of the few perks of working right in the middle of the city, Illuga supposed. The walk over took way longer than it should have, though, with so much extra foot traffic from people commuting to work.
Once he got to the hospital and finally figured out where he was going, Lohen’s room was easy enough to find. Illuga wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see upon entering, but it definitely wasn’t Lohen being fully awake and speaking to a doctor. He’d been out cold not even twenty minutes ago, or so Illuga had been told??
Illuga immediately captured everyone's attention when he entered the room, yet Lohen was the only one who visibly brightened at the sight of him.
“Birdie?” Lohen croaked, voice rough from disuse. There was an oxygen tube in his nose and so many other tubes coming from his arm that it made Illuga’s head spin.
“Hey,” Illuga said breathlessly, finally finding his voice. He was at Lohen’s bedside in an instant, kneeling on the floor instead of taking the chair so he could get a closer look at him. The heart monitor’s rhythmic beeping settled his nerves just a little bit— the proof that Lohen was alive and somewhat comfortable at least.
It was obvious even from a distance, but the bruising beneath Lohen’s eyes and across his nose was especially bad up close. He had obviously broken it, and if he had been unconscious until recently, he was very likely severely concussed, but how? Why? It took everything in Illuga not to reach out—to soothe the hurt as he had always done every time Lohen came to him with a new injury over the years.
The doctor chuckled at the sight, airy and amused, and asked, “You must be Illuga, then?”
“Yes?”
“He’s been asking for you ever since he came to,” he said as he walked towards the door. He took a good look at Illuga and then at the heart monitor at Lohen’s bedside before reaching for the handle. “You are…”
It wasn’t wrong of him to ask, but it still left Illuga reeling. The only visitors allowed to visit when Lohen was in such a state were immediate family members or a spouse. Lying to the receptionist was as easy as breathing (and was it really a lie, since he was, evidently, listed as such?) but now that he was being put on the spot and right in front of Lohen, no less, the words were stuck in Illuga’s throat.
“I’m,” he swallowed, and choked back a surprised gasp when Lohen’s hand bumped him from beneath the blanket. The doctor smiled knowingly at the display, and Illuga’s face was aflame, probably as red as the hair on his nape. Still, he persisted, saying, “I’m his husband.”
“Ah,” the doctor looked towards the monitor yet again. “That makes sense. He is very fortunate indeed,” he said with a soft smile and was gone before Illuga could blink.
There was no time for him to dwell on the words, however, as Lohen was throwing his head back into the pillow in a fit of dramatics, an exaggerated pout on his face and all.
“Hey, don’t do that shit when you’re injured!” Illuga fussed. “How’d this even happen?” he mumbled mostly to himself as he adjusted Lohen’s blanket, a hand staying atop his chest even after smoothing out the top edge.
“Why’d… you hesitate?” Lohen’s voice wobbled, and Illuga wasn’t sure if it was because he was actually on the verge of tears or if he was just delirious from the concussion and whatever cocktail of medications he was being pumped full of.
“I…what?”
“You had to think about it!” Lohen sniffled and clumsily pulled his hand (that did not have an IV in it, thankfully) from beneath the blanket to settle atop Illuga’s. “Doesn't my husband love me?”
And wasn’t that the most loaded question in all of Teyvat?
Of course, Illuga loved Lohen. He loved him like their childhood spent always by each other’s side—snack time and recess, and building a blanket fort together. He loved him like staying up past their bedtime and sharing a bed at a sleepover. He loved him when he was sweaty and covered in dirt and laughing so much that Illuga couldn’t help but laugh too. Maybe it was around then he knew, when their books no longer had pictures and math had letters in it—the realization that this love of his was something more—that he was in love with Lohen. He had loved him since before he even understood what it meant to love someone, before he knew that there was a single word to encapsulate each frustrating yet wonderful feeling Lohen elicited in him.
“More than you know…” Illuga murmured.
It wasn’t much of a confession, but it was enough for now. When Lohen wasn’t out of his mind on drugs and mild brain damage, Illuga would do it properly, look into those pretty eyes he’s always loved so much and put the feelings he’s had for as long as he can remember into words—that single word he’s carried with him for a lifetime.
“I do knooow.” Lohen was slurring his words, eyes trying to slip closed despite his best efforts to stay awake. “‘M your…wife, no?”
If Lohen really did have a concussion, he shouldn’t fall asleep, right? Illuga remembered hearing something about somewhere before. Did it matter anymore since he’d already been out cold not long ago?
Illuga shouldn’t play along. He shouldn’t do something so hedonistic, but…he should try to keep Lohen awake, right?
He hummed an agreement, then carefully swept away the hair covering Lohen’s eyes with his free hand. “What happened, bunny?”
“Why?” Lohen tried to giggle, but it sounded more like he was trying to cough than anything, with how weak he was. “Gonna beat ‘em up for me?” he mumbled and then yawned. “For touching…what’s yours?”
“I’ll kill them,” Illuga was saying before he could stop himself, before he could even take a moment to consider whether what Lohen was saying was true or not.
The heart monitor was beeping rapidly now, and a nurse was rushing into the room before either of the two could get another word out. She visibly relaxed upon seeing Lohen awake and alert; even so, she asked, “Is everything alright?”
“Never been better,” Lohen said with the dopiest grin on his face, eyes never once leaving Illuga.
Some sort of realization must have dawned on her, and she made herself scarce once she saw the readings on the monitor begin to stabilize.
“You need to rest,” Illuga whispered as soon as the door shut, the interruption having sobered him up considerably. This was serious.
“You…” Lohen started and then stopped. His eyes had slipped shut, and Illuga was just about to give him a gentle nudge before they slowly fluttered open and he spoke again. “Better not leave.”
Have I ever?
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Illuga said, so tender and so telling that it surprised even himself.
“Dude, what the hell?” were the first words Illuga heard upon his return to work a couple of days later.
“Good morning, Rollon,” Illuga greeted his coworker with a smile as he was tying his apron.
“You!” Jahoda yelled from across the bar. She marched up to him with a scowl on her face and steered him back in the direction he had just come from. He let himself be corralled into the back room, figuring that he owed her a proper explanation for what he had done the other day.
“Hey, look, I’m sorry!” Illuga said as soon as Jahoda released him. “As I said, Lohen was in the hospital—that’s who was on the phone—and I…couldn’t let him be alone in there.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Jahoda said, crossing her arms and leaning into the storage racks lining the wall. “But what happened? Is he okay? It’s been crickets for days!”
Illuga really did feel bad about going radio silent, but with Lohen being in such a state, his attention had been completely monopolized.
“He’s okay,” Illuga answered first, then, “He’s staying at mine until he’s 100%.”
“So how’d he even end up in the hospital?” Rollon butted in after he finished the order he had to make as soon as Jahoda whisked Illuga away.
“Uh, well…” Illuga really hadn’t meant to, but he still couldn’t stop the laughter from bubbling out of him.
Jahoda and Rollon looked at him as though he had finally lost his mind, but they somehow remained patient and waited for Illuga to continue.
“You know how he helps out our old neighbor, Adorno, at his flower shop across town?”
They nodded, including Tarno, who joined them after he had managed to sneak away from the register while there was a lull.
“Well, he was trying to grab this huge, ceramic vase from the top shelf and lost his grip, so it hit him square in the nose and broke it— his nose, not the vase,” Illuga clarified, which had everyone wincing in unison. “Then he fell backward and hit his head on the workbench, which is how he got the concussion and how the vase shattered.”
After Lohen was fully coherent, and they acknowledged the “your husband” shaped elephant in the room that Lohen claimed was an honest mistake, it took almost an entire day of asking (and the promise of getting railed into forgetting) for Illuga to get him to breathe a word of what had happened. Illuga was starting to worry that he genuinely had no recollection of how he ended up in the hospital, but it turned out Lohen was just embarrassed. Figures that he’d be so out of sorts over a freak accident but have absolutely no qualms about the losing what little filter he had part.
“There’s no way in hell he willingly told you all of that,” Jahoda, one of the few who knew Lohen beyond the anecdotes Illuga shared, grumbled. “How out of it was he?”
“Ha, uh, funny story…”
“Humor us, then,” Tarno deadpanned.
“HesaidIhadtofuckhimstupidsohewouldn’tremembertalkingaboutit,” Illuga rapid-fired, not even pausing for breath. He did finally take one and continued before anyone could interject. “But he was still very much concussed and on a bunch of drugs when he said he was my wife.”
“HE SAID WHAT?”
Bonus:
Illuga had barely made it through the front door when he was being jumped on by a boyfriend who should very much still be in bed resting.
Lohen stole a kiss before Illuga could chastise him, taking the fight right out of him along with a satisfied little sigh. He needed this broken nose to heal sooner rather than later so he could properly suck the air from Illuga’s lungs like he so badly wanted to.
It didn’t work for as long as Lohen had hoped, though, and Illuga was pulling away, but not before gently lifting Lohen and walking them into the house proper.
Lohen wrapped his legs around Illuga’s waist and allowed his boyfriend (!!) to carry him. Illuga hovered over him as he gently laid him down on the couch, but there was not a chance that Lohen was going to let him go so easily.
“Fine,” Illuga easily caved and lowered himself, slotting between Lohen’s legs as though he belonged there.
“Birdie,” he crooned after a bout of silence.
Illuga grunted.
“Why do I keep getting messages congratulating us on our marriage?”
Lohen felt Illuga go rigid against him. He sighed, long-suffering, before relaxing again.
Lohen huffed an amused breath, ready to tease, but didn’t get the chance to as Illuga was finally speaking.
“Let’s talk about something else…please?”
“You’re sooo lucky your wife is so considerate,” Lohen sighed, dramatic.
“Yeah,” Illuga agreed without a second thought, like the simp he was, “I really am.”